This invention relates to vacuum cleaners and, more particularly, to upright vacuum cleaners of the type having a wheeled motor housing adapted to mount an on-the-floor or off-the-floor cleaning attachment. Such a vacuum cleaner has a handle pivotally connected to the housing for ease of operation during on-the-floor cleaning operations and has a flexible dirt-collecting bag extending from an exhaust fan outlet to a connection at the upper portion of the handle.
Early vacuum cleaners of this type include a dirt bag which is more or less symmetrically located with respect to the vertical axis of the cleaner and which relies merely upon retention of the dirt to the walls of the bag. To clean such a bag, the lower portion of the bag is removed from its connection to the motor housing and the contents of the bag are dumped on or into a collecting means such as a newspaper or paper bag. Later vacuum cleaner models such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,384 and U.S. Pat. No. Des. D222,593 provide for a dirt-collecting box mounted on one side of the motor housing with an exhaust outlet asymmetrically located with respect to the axis of the cleaner to facilitate dirt discharge and removal from the cleaner.
In each such arrangement, the bag extends from the exhaust outlet to an upper portion of the handle and is connected to the upper portion of the handle by a ring on the bag which cooperates with a spring clasp or snap hook attached to the handle. Generally speaking, the spring clasp or snap hook is attached to a wire which is similar to a wire coat hanger having inwardly turned ends which support the top of the dirt-collecting bag. In some instances, the wire and a portion of the top of the bag are covered with an enveloping plastic or metal sleeve which fits over the top of the bag and compresses the top of the bag into a flat, rectangular, seamed configuration.
With such arrangements, the flexible bag tends to be flexed from a normal upright position, which detracts from the appearance of the cleaner. More importantly, however, a flexed bag may not provide optimum dirt-filtering capacity for an external dirt-collecting bag, or may distort an internally contained disposable bag, with similar results.